REVIEW - THE GOLDEN DREAM (DIEGO QUEMADA DIAZ)

Though it pursues a familiar trajectory, Diego Quemada Diaz's The Golden Dream feels like a more vital, consequential piece of filmmaking than almost all others you might see. Its themes carry a legitimacy, the nature in which they are presented a candour and a heartfelt sympathy, that one rather feels it puts all other films to shame, as if this is the purpose for which the  medium of cinema ought to be exploited. Quemada Diaz's approach is ostensibly realism, the incandescent cinematography the only immediate suggestion that he's aspiring to anything grander, artistically. But his unyielding focus on the most pertinent details in each particular moment betrays his true intent, to present his story in a more abstract form than initially apparent. Diaz is hugely perceptive with his visual storytelling, also incisively comprehending the tendency in children to become taciturn in trauma, and while his scope may be expansive, his message is narrow and clear. It's a massive setting for an extremely intimate film, like the foreboding landscapes these youths are dumped upon, or the large train carriages they sit atop, or are seen beside. For all his astuteness, his subtlety and his humanitarianism, Quemada Diaz doesn't display much will to surprise us with his film, that is until the final moments. Here, in a crowded, confined space, he suddenly asks us to reassess how we envisage this unfortunate teen's future, insidiously implying that he may spend the rest of his life coping with the dregs of a more demanding society's garbage. That Diaz is able to cling to hope is a curious fact in such circumstances, though that affords us a dazzling closing shot that makes The Golden Dream's ending one of the finest I've seen in some time.

REVIEW - HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2 (DEAN DEBLOIS)

Those darned quotas. You'd almost think someone was trying to make a movie here! How to Train Your Dragon 2 is a film so swamped by the requirements of franchise formula that it's easy to overlook the fact that much of what made its predecessor so charming is still intact, though it's equally easy to find oneself so entertained in the instant that much of what is clearly starting to rot away at this series might itself go overlooked. The film, for its length, is over-ambitious, not overstuffed. It has little on its plate, truly, yet what little there is is of sturdy character, and needs a level of nurturing that a snappy family film like this can't naturally offer. Dean DeBlois' mercilessly fast pace deprives How to Train Your Dragon 2's more emotionally stimulating content of its impact, whether by reducing it to cliches or by skimming past it, ever aware of the supposed need to sprint to the finish line before any of the kids in the audience fall asleep. It's hard to fault DeBlois on the choices he makes in shaping that content, however. This is a mature film in its intentions, with surprising political undertones and a depth of empathy explored in a slightly subversive manner, at least in its constant earnestness. It's as DeBlois begins to develop these plot strands that he suddenly happens upon an urge to wrap it up and get to the action, to defy the film's emotional trajectory in favour of spectacular action sequences. The animation is exemplary in its vast detail, but somewhat soulless in its basic design, and there's little sense of wonder when the images on the screen are so obviously entirely computerised. This, and the very nature of the film's final act as an action epic, feels like meeting company quotas, ticking boxes. There's a more creative mind behind this series than DreamWorks would have you know.

BOX OFFICE REPORT: TRANSFORMERS MAKES 2014 $100M BARRIER EXTINCT... OR DOES IT?

This hasn't emerged from a major studio since Minority Report in 2002: Paramount is under fire for apparently manipulating the opening weekend figures for its major summer blockbuster, and first place opener Transformers: Age of Extinction. Either way, it's the biggest opening of the year at the US box office, and enormous international figures have confirmed this franchise reinvigoration as a serious presence in the current movie marketplace. Wide releases were restricted solely to the shape-shifting behemoths, while limited ones were in much higher numbers.

1. Transformers: Age of Extinction ($100,038,390... or is it $97.76m?)

No matter how it's put, this is not only the weekend's highest gross, but the highest weekend gross of the year yet. But Paramount and (all) other sources disagree on the exact figure: the studio's figure is a pretty precise $100,038,390, while normally reliable Rentrak estimates put the action sequel at $97.76 million. Word is that Paramount's report would have required the few theatres not covered by Rentrak to have posted grosses over three times the national per-theatre average; those in the know posit that the figure might have been inflated by Paramount for fear of forced redundancies if Age of Extinction failed to reach $100 million, a number which no other film this year has yet claimed in its first three days, and in a summer that looks unlikely to yield any other $100m weekend grossers. Overseas, it appears to have scored the biggest opening of all time in China, and has amassed enormous worldwide totals to date despite only having opened in a very small few major markets.

2. 22 Jump Street ($15,842,375)

3. How to Train Your Dragon 2 ($13,237,697)

4. Think Like a Man Too ($10,316,397)

5. Maleficent ($8,376,674)

6. Jersey Boys ($7,712,264)

7. Edge of Tomorrow ($5,404,290)

8. The Fault in Our Stars ($5,130,777)

9. X-Men: Days of Future Past ($3,321,427)

10. Chef ($1,657,391)

OBIT - PAUL MAZURSKY

One of the 1970s' seminal voices in American film, Paul Mazursky, has died. Aged 84, the writer-director born Irwin Mazursky suffered cardiac arrest on Monday the 30th of June. A popular figure in cinema since his breakthrough directorial debut, Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice, he was nominated for several Oscars through his career, and won a career achievement award from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association in 2010, and a lifetime achievement award from the Writers Guild of America earlier this year. He'll be remembered for classic features such as Blume in Love, Harry and Tonto, Down and Out in Beverly Hills, Enemies: A Love Story, and, his most popular, An Unmarried Woman, with Jill Clayburgh in her most memorable screen performance. He is survived by his wife Betsy and his daughter Jill.

POSTER FOR A MOST WANTED MAN

Receiving a burst of publicity due to the presence of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman in the lead role, Anton Corbijn's A Most Wanted Man opens in the US on the 25th of July, then in the British Isles on the 5th of September. The film screened earlier this year at Sundance, to decent reviews.

GERONTOPHILIA TRAILER

Bruce LaBruce's dip into the mainstream has, as all his films do, its fans, but the broad critical reaction to his film on the festival circuit, particularly at Venice and Toronto last year, hasn't been so positive. Gerontophilia was released in France in March, and receives one in LaBruce's native Canada this Friday, the 4th of July.

TOM HARDY JOINS GONZALEZ INARRITU'S THE REVENANT

Leonardo DiCaprio's Inception co-star, Tom Hardy, will join him in The Revenant. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's expected follow-up to Birdman has been on the cards for a while now, but it finally taking serious shape.

TRAILER FOR THE DOG

A festival run ended with a limited release in Spain earlier this year for Allison Berg and Francois Keraudren's documentary The Dog, which opens in the US on the 8th of August. The film is a portrait of John Wojtowicz, whom you may know as Al Pacino's character in Dog Day Afternoon. It screened at TIFF last year.

CHANNING TATUM IN FOXCATCHER POSTER

Not as strong as the initial poster for Bennett Miller's Foxcatcher, which surfaced during Cannes, but promising enough nonetheless. Notable for the presence of the more photogenic lead over the more buzzed-about lead, and for Sienna Miller's absence in the credits. With good reviews out of Cannes, and an award from the jury, Foxcatcher is one of the year's biggest American awards contenders. Out in the US on the 14th of November, and on the 25th of December in the UK, which makes no sense, since theatres here are closed on Christmas Day.

REVIEW - COLD IN JULY (JIM MICKLE)

The excuse that the novel did it, so why shouldn't the movie, doesn't have much traction with me, but if you're gonna make a mess of your movie then why not? In hindsight, it's clear that Cold in July intends to be taken as cheap pulp, more stylised than stylish, and veering erratically between genres, moods and plotlines. It's a ploy that forgives the film's manic character, which itself forgives the few (among many) tangents the story takes a notion to that come off as director Jim Mickle trying too hard. Yet it is doing an otherwise promising film an injustice, as if to make the most of a spoiled situation, when so much of it is so far from spoiled at all. Mickle's talent for atmosphere and his affable attention to detail are put to brilliant use in Cold in July's first tonal stop-off, a tense revenge thriller with promising shades of a sins-of-the-father subtext. And who can resist a good old twist? The plot thickens, and Cold in July begins to resemble a solid modern noir, like David Cronenberg's A History of Violence. That is until Mickle loses control - not of his craft, just of his sense of reasoning. Cold in July takes so long to fully exploit its true nature as a haphazard, artistic B-movie that it's only in the final few scenes that one actually realises it. The impact of the first act is such that the rest of the film can only wither in comparison. Perhaps this is why the climactic sequence is such a barnstormer, or perhaps it's just that Mickle has finally given into the type of movie he truly wanted Cold in July to be. Or maybe he wanted it to be a mess, the mess that he made of it. Well, why not?